Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Halloween actually fell on a normal posting day for the blog so I figured I better do something holiday related. Halloween use to be a big event for me every year, but in the years since I worked and lived in LA my excitement for it seems to have faded. Hard to top when you had almost endless resources to make anything you could dream up and you were encouraged to come up with better and better costumes each year. Nothing like a Halloween party full of folks that work in the makeup effects and movie industry! Fun memories...

Today I have for you some images of the background masks I designed, fabricated, and painted for the Halloween episode of the 5th session of Angel. I was given boxes of parts and pieces and tasked with fabricating 17 masks to be worn by extras. From what I understand you never actually see any of these in the episode... but now you know that they were actually there. Here is a group shot as well as some closeups.

This marks the beginning of an open call for questions. Leave your questions as a comment on this post and I will do my best to post an answer to your question on this blog at a later date. I am asking for anything and everything - within reason and within the scope that my blog already covers. Here is your chance to ask me direct questions and I will do my best to answer them all as soon as I can! I hope this is something that you the readers out there find interesting, because I welcome the one on one Q&A interaction! I hope to hear from you call soon!

Because I hate doing blog posts without any images, here is a sword my amazing wife bought for me over the weekend that will be a great addition to my reference arsenal…

Monsters use swords too! RAWR!

That's all for another exciting Monday, see you back here on Wednesday! Until then...

Friday, October 26, 2012

I have for you another drawing that is fresh from the drawing table. This time around it is a Flesh Golem! "G" is just full of cool monsters and with classic monsters like Goblins and the myriad of Giants the rest can get overlooked. I felt the Golem was overdue for some attention and it was the lucky winner for this third pass through the original Monster Manual. I present to you my version of a Golem (Flesh)…

The Golem is one of those monsters that have been with us for a long time. Originating in Jewish folklore the Golem has been the perfect man made monster metaphor. Golem of Prague is my favorite of the stories. Though there are many variations of the story, the center of the story is that the Golem is constructed as a defense for the Jewish citizens and as the Golem grew it became more violent and eventually turns on its creators. That's good stuff! A precursor to Frankenstein's monster? With Frankenstein in mind I decided to make my first Golem the Flesh Golem. Mismatched and put together, this humanoid abominations is returned to life using powerful arcane rituals and magics. Incredibly powerful this creature is just as likely to turn on its creator as to be a problem for a band of adventures. While working on this I had some weird flashbacks from when I was on the design team for the Hallmark channels version of Frankenstein…

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Back in August I shared with you the pieces that I completed for the LoTR Battle of Lake-Town Gen Con 2012 expansion.
Today, I have for you the process breakdown for the third and final Smaug piece completed for this expansion. Let's start
off with having a look at the finish piece before jumping into the
process...

Having already covered a great deal of the back story and shared in depth walk throughs with the first process post
and second process post I am going to address
the parts that are unique to this piece. The third piece needed to
depict a "Single Attack". Talking with my art director we agreed an image depicting a bite attack or the moments just prior to the bite would be good for this piece. I instantly thought an extreme close up of Smaug's mouth as he descends to grab some unlucky citizen of Lake-Town in his mouth. I was immediately very excited about working on this piece and couldn't wait to start it. For me it was going to be very different from the rest of the Smaug pieces I have already done and be an interesting view I have never done before. I got to woke of the
thumbnails and this is the one I submitted...

With the the thumbnail completed and approved I moved forward with the final drawing. I have shouted out into the internet about this before and I will do it again.... REFERENCE! Even though I am creating an imaginary creature it still needs to be based on the real world around us. I am also depicting the head of this imaginary creature at an extreme foreshortened angle. If any of this looks wrong or even just a little off it will detract heavily from this piece. I have a small alligator head that I use all the time to draw from to make sure perspective and foreshortening is correct for things like dragon mouths. With the proper reference to make sure everything looks and feels believable I moved forward with the final drawing...

With an approved drawing I began working on the final painting. My new process was beginning to gel and I made quick work of this dragon. I was also really excited about working on this piece, so that helped my speed and enthusiasm. In nice easy steps you can make a line drawing turn into a dragon...

This piece was approved without any revisions. Seeing it cropped for the card I feel that it may appear to read as if the head is disembodied. I tried to make sure that both my cropping and FFG's cropping provided an appealing image. For the most part I hope I was successful. Here is how the final card turned out...

One last look at my final version. This is the last of my Smaug pieces for the Battle of Lake-Town expansions, but fear naught, there will be more Smaug paintings from me later in the year! RAWR!

Monday, October 22, 2012

Back in July I shared with you my work on the Sahrvin Demon
for the Angel series. I mentioned that I had originally created several
designs mostly for myself since I was not on the design team for the
initial push for this demon. Those designs were eventually submitted to
production but were all rejected. Today I have for you the third and final rejected design, if you missed the others, you can see the first rejected design here and the second rejected design here.

For the third design I was just getting wacky. I knew full well that it was almost an impossibility that completely covering the mouth would make it past production. It was something I really wanted to flesh out and it could have been really cool. If this was a desert demon maybe it employed some sort of technology or arcane construct to make life more bearable. Or maybe it was a translation devise... who knows, it's a demon! It could be anything... but what it really was... REJECTED...

I think this piece suffers for all the same reasons that all my work of this time period suffers. The forms are not informed or influenced by anything and they remain rather simple and uninteresting, to me at least. The asymmetrical top of the head is nice though. The neck collar would have been such a cool thing to see in real life and would have made the demon really stand out. But it is what it is... I had some free time in the last couple months
to revisit my original designs and I came up with something newer...

The original version was not very threatening and this redesign continues that. Hopefully the demon and the breathing collar feel more unified, I always felt the original seemed like two very separate forms and were not really connected... or at least felt like it could really function with any usefulness. I hope that it is overall more interesting to look at as well... but that is ultimately in the realm of the viewer. I at least find it more interesting and more successful then the original. The leaking mouth fluids down the front of the collar are what really make it a success for me...

This concludes all my work on the Sahrvin demon, hope you have enjoyed it!

Friday, October 19, 2012

I have for you another drawing that is fresh from the drawing table.
This time around it is a Flightless Bird! This is the last official entry for the letter "F" in the original D&D Monster Manual. When I think of monsters I don't usually think of the ostrich (unless in is the rhinostrich), emu, and rhea... but they are in the Monster Manual and I will be sure to include them. I
present
to you
my version of a Flightless Bird...

I was and still am a little dissatisfied with how the Jaguar turned out. I swore to myself that the remaining mundane entries in the Monster Manual will be more interesting and feel like they exist in my D&D world. With that in mind I moved forward on the Flightless Bird with a wider idea of how to depict what is essentially just an animal. I thought it would be really fun (and I really wanted to draw it) to depict the ostrich as a mount and have some smaller creature riding it. I thought about using a previous entry as the rider, but I decided to go with a fully armored small figure to hopefully distract less from the bird. The only problem is that if there was a video game that came out 30 years ago and involved a FLYING bird like creature that the second you put an armored figure on a bird you are obviously drawing something from said video game. Oh well... it was fun to draw...

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Back in September I shared with a recent Dungeons & Dragon piece that I appeared in Dragon magazine #414, The Vale of the Inner Sun.
Today, I have for you a look at the process that went into the mutated elf foulspawn that was ever so briefly threatened by magenta. Let's start
off with having a look at the finished piece before jumping into the
process...

I have alluded for a while now that there was a story involving magenta with this piece. Basically, as an artist you sometimes take risks or you do something you think at the time is really awesome. Sometimes it IS really awesome and the artistic risks pay off... and sometime they do not and the art director has to tell you to change it. My "at the time good idea" was to put some wicked awesome back lighting on this guy... but I am getting ahead of myself. First it all started with some concepts since this was a new monster. This new creature was described as an elf that has been corrupted and mutated into a foulspawn spell caster with a eyeless mask, staff, spell book, and had blood drenched robes. Its arms and torso needed to be elongated as if stretched. Here are the concepts I came up with...

I followed the concepts up with some thumbnails of the creature emerging from a cave entrance is several dynamic and exciting ways. At the time I did not have a clear personal favorite so I used all the concepts in the thumbnails to get a better feel for what it working and what was not. When it was all said and done, I think I was leaning toward thumbnail 'B' or 'C'...

With everything approved it was now time to work on the final painting and this is where it all gets weird. As part of the description for this piece there was a bit of background added describing how underground earthquakes that could happen anywhere could unleash these creatures so that they could be added to any campaign. I imagined some horrific underground event involving magic and arcane wonders and horrors that cause and are the aftermath of all this and so should be included in the illustration... namely in the form of some glow from inside the cave. Let's see how that all worked out when the glow ended up being MAGENTA...

Um... yeah. Everything should look relatively similar to my current build up of my images in steps 1 - 5. In step 5 you can see the introduction of color and the glow taking form. Steps 6 - 8 it just keeps going and going and step 8 is what I turned into the art director the first time. When the note came back to get rid of the magenta it was a little overwhelming and was a bit worried at the scale of this change... at least I was not working traditionally where it would be a lot worse. At first I thought the color needed to just be changed to another color and that added to the confusion of the revision. But after some emails with the AD is was more clear to me on what the problem was and what needed to be done. The color was not only overwhelming it was also causing the blood to become less noticeable and pulling focus. Sometimes the illustration is just about a monster standing in the opening of a cave. Here is a side by side comparison of the two final versions of this piece, you be the judge...

Now that the MAGENTA has been dealt with the piece was quickly approved. This is another reason why it is good to get your assignments in early. I had the pieces in well before they were due and even with this change I was still able to deliver the final work to the AD ahead of deadline and at happy AD makes for a happy artist! ALSO, don't fight the revisions, just do them. You will lose the fight every time and might lose a lot more in the long run if the AD never calls you back for another job. The AD and production have an objective view point and thankfully in my experience have always been a source for improvement. Granted, there are exceptions and if they are making changes to the final that should have been addressed by them in the sketch phase there are time when you have the power to act on behave... but the general revision notes need to be done quickly and with a smile. Here is the final piece one more time...

Monday, October 15, 2012

About a year ago I was asked to design and illustrate a new monstrous samurai for Legends of the Five Rings and it sounded like a interesting challenge. This member of the Crab Clan was to be over 20 feet tall and be able to wield a tetsubo that was basically a tree trunk wrapped with some metal. This Hida monster needed to be mutant... part man, part monster, and a whole lot of oni. He is a shadow of the man he use to be but still determined to serve his clan against the threats of the oni. Here is how Hida Kaiji and his three illustrations turned out...

This set had a super limited early release at Gen Con this year and I was able to see some of my cards in person when folks brought them by for me to sign. I am still waiting to have all three in hand but there are plenty of good images online of them and here they are for you to see how the cards turned out...

I am really happy with how the final cards turned out... and my name was not cropped out in all of them. In the coming weeks I will be sure to share with you the designs, thumbnails, and process progressions for these pieces. As always a big thanks to Adrian and Steve for the opportunity, advice, and monsters! It is not everyday that you get to make a landscape out of a dead oni. More L5R will be along in the fullness of time... and I will need to be patient to share the pieces I just finished for them!

That is all for another exciting Monday of new monsters of the blog, see you back here on Wednesday! Until then...

Friday, October 12, 2012

I have for you another drawing that is fresh from the drawing table.
This time around it is an Eye of the Deep! "E" still has a lot to offer but I am surprised it has taken until the third pass for me to tackle this monster. The Eye of the Deep is a giant aquatic cousin of the Beholder and that sure sounds like a mountain load of monster fun! I present
to you
my version of an Eye of the Deep...

I have always wondered it is AN Eye of the Deep or THE Eye of the
Deep... the weirdness of this creature always led me to imagine that
there was only one of them. Down in the deepest more crushing depths of the oceans this thing lives and festers in its hatred of everything that walks on the land. The one thing that really bothered me about the original monsters is that to me it looks like it lacks any modes of propulsion. I rectified this by adding a cuttle fish type body fin that runs the length of the body. Not perfect, but it gets the job done and makes it a bit more interesting in my opinion. Hard to go wrong with a giant eye, claws, and lots of tentacles!

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Back in August I shared with you the pieces that I completed for the LoTR Battle of Lake-Town Gen Con 2012 expansion.
Today, I have for you the process breakdown for the second of
those Smaug pieces. Let's start
off with having a look at the finish piece before jumping into the
process...

Since I went into so much detail and back story about this project in the first process post I am going to assume you are familiar with the main points and address the parts that are unique to this piece. This second piece needed to depict a "Fear Attack", the horrifying and impressive monster that is Smaug. I instantly thought of a nice worm's eye view looking up at Smaug being big and scary with the lighting silhouetting the head with glowing eyes and mouth. Which is what I was trying to covey in the thumbnail I submitted...

The thumbnail was approved and I moved forward with the drawing. As I mentioned previously, this project was under a really tight deadline and time was of the essence. I was rushing things where ever I could and once of the places, at least for this piece was the drawing. Rushing the early stages is something I have warned about many times here on the blog and here I was making the mistake I have warned against. This is how that rushed drawing turned out...

While the drawing was approved when it came tome to actually work on the painting I realized that my haste had resulted in a less then ideal starting point. Some of the anatomy was a bit of wonky and the over all piece lacked symmetry and things were misaligned. The other issue was that after completing the first of these new Smaug pieces I had made some modifications and improvements to make the over all design and look of Smaug more interesting. Before moving forward with this painting I needed to fix the mess my haste had created and I needed to make sure the dragon was depicted identically across the three pieces. Thankfully, fixing the drawing was a relatively straight forward and easy process...

Now that the drawing was squared away I was all set to move forward with the painting. Even though I was still getting comfortable with my new technique this piece came together quickly and easily once the drawing was fixed. Here is a break down of the painting process...

The piece was approved without revisions. I think I am can say without a doubt that the piece was well received because not only was it used for the intended card but the art was reused for the cover card of the entire set! Here is how the card and the cover card turned out, you can see how the cropping changed from my version to the version used...

One last look at my final version. I always find it interesting how I and other react differently to a piece. I always have a favorite when doing a series of paintings all at the same time. This is not my favorite, but it is obviously liked by the folks at FFG. As time passes, this piece is growing on me. I think that some of the goofs with the drawing started me off on the wrong foot with it. Oh well, looking at the final painting you would never know any of that...

About Me

I began my career designing special makeup effect for movies and television. Some of the television shows I worked on including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly.

Currently I work in the gaming industry illustrating and designing monsters. I have done work with
Wizards of the Coast, Fantasy Flight Games, Paizo Publishing, Privateer Press, and AEG (just to name a few) on various book, card and miniature gaming products.